Wearing All the Hats: Erik Hanberg makes technology do his bidding

Erik Hanberg hasn't had a full time job since 2008, he says that's because "I've been leaping from moving trains… piecing together a career.” His security comes from dipping his fingers into several different projects and using tech to keep the money rolling in. And he’s not keeping his secrets to himself. He wants to spread the word, which he’s done as a guest speaker in the classroom (of Professor Andrew Fry, specifically), but has also put books out into the world to be gobbled up by those he can’t speak to personally.

His success came, as it does for many great achievers, out of failure. Erik started at Tacoma’s Grand Cinema in 2004, where as the Managing Director accomplished the previously impossible task of putting the Grand in line to run itself using the innovation of technology. He was amazingly successful. So successful that he decided that he didn’t need to work for the Grand because he could do this on his own. “What if I owned this? I can own this and do less work! It is a dangerous insight to a twenty-six year old.” And that brings forth his grand failure.

The Horatio, Hanberg’s independent project managed to squeeze out 7 shows before it had to shut down. For the theater, business was booming online. “The physical presence is what killed me,” mentions Hanberg. “It was a real lesson for me.” The greatest success for Erik was that all the different services, online and off, were run by one person – him.

From this failure and success (and at first, simultaneously), he would continue on to build the puzzle known as his career. He spent time writing satire and news and editing videos at Exit133, directed the alumni program at Bellarmine Prep and founded the workspace Suite133. His resume is full of titles like director, owner and partner. In short, he is no peon. Erik Hanberg has been quite influential in all the organizations he’s touched.

One of those is Side X Side Creative, originally a graphic design company began as a project for his wife’s, Mary Holste’s, portfolio for grad school. When Mary realized that the company was taking off beyond a simple portfolio, she left her job and reached out to her husband for assistance in keeping up with demand. This, Erik claims is the closest thing to a full time job that he’s had since 2008. Then people were asking them Can you do web? Can you do video? “I think I can figure it out,” Erik recalls replying with a confident smirk.

In late 2008, Erik came across another idea that struck his heart. “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferris preached that All People have Expertise that they can Sell. “I looked back at my history and I saw small nonprofit fundraising,” and so Erik put out his first book The Little Book of Gold in 2009. Mary had designed his cover. To be safe, he tested the waters for demand before he put time into the book by providing an outline, the cover and the first chapter. When he realized that yes, the world is interested, he completed the project. 

He went with the self-publishing route using the Amazon platform. “Again, (I) built an entire business off the internet.” Erik is very fond of the World Wide Web’s presence as a way of introduction of tech that hadn’t existed before and was amazed by the empowerment where businessmen “went straight to people to find an audience.”

Erik has gone on to write five more books. He admits to being slow to accept Kindle into his tools, previously only utilizing print-on-demand. Eventually, he even turned The Little Book of Gold into an audiobook that he recorded in the producer’s garage. He calls his books “side projects that keep on paying dividends,” and advises students that “new books are good marketing for old books.”

In order to grow one’s own success, Erik says you only need to be really good at two things: producing your product in a cave (in isolation) and riding the stream of the web to find and keep your audience.

Erik’s current project is Channel 253. “I’ve started a radio program without the expense of a radio program” he brags and rightfully so. Channel 253 has six podcasts, all Tacoma themed, including local news and Taco-Man (a play on the identifier Tacoman). Hanberg is confident that it will be a success because he has no legacy costs such as printing presses, like that of his competitors, plus his competitors might be optimizing for the wrong problem. He claims journalism is changing, and he seems to hold a few clues as to where that is going.